Transmogrify Your Armor in WoW

New feature for 4.3 will let you change appearance while keeping the same stats ... for some gold.

When a new expansion for World of Warcraft comes out, many of the veterans get a little chagrined that the fancy-looking armor they've been raiding three nights a week to get a matching set of is now going to be replaced. Players might be attached to a specific look from when they started playing back in 2005 but it would be silly to wear armor tuned for level 60. Blizzard is changing all that by implementing the Transmogrify feature in the next patch. All you have to do is pay an Ethereal some gold and he will transmogrify your armor to look like another piece in your inventory.

"You can raid in your paladin tier 12 Immolation set, but look like you're wearing Lightbringer, while priests can bring Benediction back - at least in spirit. Hunters can once again roam the jungles of Stranglethorn Vale in their tier 2 Dragonstalker set," writes Community Manager Bashiok on the WoW blog. "You could even slip into the saucy tailored Black Mageweave set for that matter."

The price of switching appearance doesn't look cheap. The screenshots show an orc transmogrifying a piece of armor for almost 120 gold. Granted, that's piddling change to people who raid constantly but decking out your whole outfit will set you back a not insubstantial amount of gold.

It looks like this feature is what Blizzard was teasing with the photo placed on WoW's Facebook page last week. One result of Transmogrification is that not every class will look the same. In the late stages of an expansion's cycle, walking around the bank of Stormwind or Orgrimmar will hopefully not confront you with a chorus line of Paladins and Druids all wearing the exact same armor.

There are some restrictions. You can only transmogrify armor to look like stuff you can wear and it can't change plate armor to look like cloth robes. By doing so, Blizzard is trying to keep PvP clear of deception - thinking you are up against a Mage in a robe is a lot different if he's actually a Death Knight in disguise. But you will be able to switch out guns and bows, just in case you wanted to get your Dwarf Hunter's gun bonus without firing a god-damned hand cannon every two seconds.

Blizzard also expects Transmogrification will increase demand for bag space in banks and on your person because it will be necessary to keep all of the old items if you want your new stuff to be transmogrified to look like it. Bashiok promised this would be alleviate with another new feature - Void Storage - but we'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out more about that.

Patch 4.3 isn't coming any time soon, but I expect to learn more at BlizzCon in October.